Let Me Fall
by Whitefeather
Summary: Dumbledore and Voldemort meet for one last time. After asking a simple question, Voldemort comes to a sudden realization sometimes there are shades of gray within the black...


Let Me Fall  
  
Notes- I was writing responses to my reviews for 'One Week' when one reviewer mentioned that they didn't understand my portrayal of Dumbledore and Voldemort's relationship. I hint on it in both One Week in Heaven and in Dear Harry, but I've never outright thrown my opinions on a fic. So here it is, a small fanfic piece, which will hopefully make a number of people's opinion on these two characters change a bit.  
  
Summary- Voldemort asks Dumbledore one question which he can't answer- if he hates him for all he's done. Curious as to why Dumbledore won't answer, he keeps him alive and talking- and Voldemort learns that there is never one answer to a question.  
  
Dedicated to Charlie, the person who made me write this. Hope this was what you were looking for!  
  
***  
  
Starlight filtered over the top of the lowest mountain in the skyline of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as an elderly man stepped slowly onto the grassy field from the gravel walkway. The twinkle typically evident in the older man's eyes was gone, instead replaced with a look of grim defeat.  
  
Dumbledore sighed gently, looked up to the sky, and spoke in a soft voice to the wind.  
  
"You can come out now, Tom."  
  
A shrill laugh from nothing was brought with the wind.  
  
"I'm to believe that you won't hurt me, Dumbledore? If given the chance, you won't hurt or kill me, just to save your precious Potter?"  
  
In front of the headmaster, winds converged, and the Dark Lord appeared out of nothing. The darkness of the night made only the outlines of each visible.  
  
"Yet you seem to trust me enough, Tom..."  
  
"Don't call me that." Voldemort interrupted.  
  
"You never minded it when I called you that long before, Tom."  
  
"I was young. I didn't know what you were back then."  
  
"You trusted me."  
  
"That was years ago."  
  
The Dark Lord turned, and looked to the stars.  
  
Dumbledore spoke.  
  
"I shouldn't have gone that day, Tom. You wouldn't be here now if..."  
  
"You're wrong."  
  
"No, you are. If I hadn't gone that night, you would have rested safely in your bed, and you would have never become this."  
  
"I was this long before Grindelwald's capture, Dumbledore. It didn't matter that you left me to him."  
  
"He made you into what you are."  
  
"I don't deny that he helped me; but no, I would have been this either way."  
  
They faced one another once more, and finally Voldemort looked away.  
  
"Besides, you hated me from me first day onward."  
  
"I never hated you, Tom. Only what you would become."  
  
"So you hate me now then."  
  
"I never said that."  
  
"Well do you?"  
  
A pause.  
  
"It is a complicated answer, Tom. It takes much time to answer."  
  
"All it takes is a yes or no."  
  
"Answer me first then. Do you hate me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Or do you hate what I've done?"  
  
"Both, I assume. You can't hate what a person has done and not hate them."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"It's impossible."  
  
"I have."  
  
"You're impossible, Dumbledore."  
  
He chuckled.  
  
"So I've been told."  
  
"So who is the lucky person to defy fate?"  
  
Another silence.  
  
"You, Tom."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I hate what you've done, but I loved you as a person."  
  
"I'm flattered, but we both know that it would never work."  
  
"Tom. You know I mean it not like that... I loved you as I would my son."  
  
"Love does not exist."  
  
"Then what saved Potter as a child?"  
  
He paused again, then continued.  
  
"You never answered my question, Headmaster."  
  
"Which one?"  
  
"Do you hate me?"  
  
"I can't answer it, Tom."  
  
"Yes you can. Just say the answer, and this can all begin. Then end..."  
  
Another pause, and Dumbledore looked to the moon.  
  
"Will this ever end, Tom?"  
  
He sighed.  
  
"I don't know, Dumbledore."  
  
"Isn't there another way?"  
  
But they both knew there wasn't.  
  
"So this is the end, hm?"  
  
"Is it?"  
  
"Yes. You will kill me here."  
  
"Then why do you come? Why do you come, knowing you'll die?"  
  
"It must be done."  
  
"You're a crackpot old fool, you know?"  
  
He replied with the same line once more, this time with no trace of a smile.  
  
"So I've been told."  
  
Voldemort reached out his hand, and slowly took Dumbledore's wand into his own.  
  
"Without a fight? Quite unlike you, Dumbledore."  
  
"There is nothing to fight you for."  
  
"Answer my question, so we can be done here."  
  
"I cannot."  
  
"Because you hate me? Because you think you love me? Because you feel so much inside? You're wrong, Dumbledore. All these feelings... they don't exist. And if they do, it's best to push them away."  
  
He raised the wand.  
  
"Answer me this question, and it will end."  
  
"I told you Tom, I cannot answer your question. And a thousand years may ge by, but I still will not answer."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because it takes more than a word to answer, Tom, and a word is all you will give me."  
  
The Dark Lord laughed.  
  
"This is the end."  
  
"Or is it the beginning?"  
  
"Stop it with your damned rhetorical answers, Albus."  
  
He froze.  
  
"I told you."  
  
"No."  
  
"I told you."  
  
"It can't be."  
  
"It is."  
  
"Crucio."  
  
Dumbledore, obviously in pain, simply gave his former student a weak smile.  
  
Voldemort removed the curse.  
  
"You are wrong."  
  
"About what?"  
  
"I never gave a damn about you."  
  
"I never said you did, Tom."  
  
"Stop calling me that."  
  
"You can call me by my first name, but I can't answer you the same?"  
  
The wand flew back up.  
  
"Enough with the games, Dumbledore. You will be dead, and it won't matter the answer."  
  
"But don't you want the answer to your question?"  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"Then why are you delaying my death?"  
  
Voldemort swore.  
  
"If you want death so much, the I will grant it."  
  
"So you don't want the answer?"  
  
"Tell me."  
  
"I told you, I cannot."  
  
"Then why the hell are you playing with my mind? You know that delaying death does not matter."  
  
"I will die here tonight wither way."  
  
"Then why delay it?"  
  
"Because it proves to me that you still have some of Tom Riddle inside of you."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Because only a human would care the answer to that question."  
  
The sun broke the crest of the hills, and Tom looked into the eyes of his prisoner for the first time that night. He was stunned.  
  
Tears flowed openly down them.  
  
"Why do you cry?"  
  
"Because all these years fighting you, I was wrong."  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I thought you lost, completely overtaken by Voldemort. But you are not. You are still the scared little boy that I once loved."  
  
"I am Tom Riddle no longer, Dumbledore."  
  
"Allow me one last moment, then, to speak my mind?"  
  
"Have you not had it?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Tom. I should never have left that night. From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry."  
  
"Is that all?"  
  
"No."  
  
Dumbledore leaned back, and rested on the ground.  
  
"It is too late for last words, Dumbledore. Avada..."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Voldemort stopped.  
  
"You hate me?"  
  
"Yes. I hate you because of what you've done to me, driving me insane with 'what ifs'. I hate you for hurting people, innocent, because of a mistake that I made. I hate you... because I loved you once. And because when I look at you, I know that I lost the closest thing I've had to a son. I hate you, Voldemort. I hate you, and I love Tom."  
  
"That was more than one word."  
  
"So you feel nothing."  
  
"No."  
  
"Then I know I've lost him."  
  
"Tom died, Dumbledore. You will be with him."  
  
"And so I shall, Voldemort. So I shall."  
  
"Avada Kedavra."  
  
A green rush, and Dumbledore smiled.  
  
Voldemort looked to the body, and realized the truth. Dumbledore hadn't been lying. Tom had been alive, as long as Dumbledore was.  
  
Two people had died tonight. 


End file.
